Life in Texas Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Tag Archives: Gun Ban

Vexatious litigant and embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed another lawsuit to waste taxpayer dollars and deflect attention from his own considerable legal woes. Paxton is suing the City of Austin for an alleged violation of the state’s open carry law by banning guns from its city hall, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Red predicts that Mr. P will fail in his efforts to coerce Austin into complying with his Tea Party and NRA agenda. The language of the open carry law provides that guns can be prohibited in courts or “offices utilized by the court.” Austin’s city hall (and many others in Texas) frequently hold various types of court proceedings. Austin temple of local democracy, for example, hosts a community court for low-level offenders, and the City based its gun ban on that fact. Whether that’s actually a court is an open question. Three weeks ago, Paxton issued a non-binding AG’s opinion claiming there is no court in Austin’s city hall and threatened to sue Austin unless it blinked first. City officials apparently had little respect for the legal stylings of an indicted AG. Paxton, ever eager for a spotlight that will cement his Tea Party bona fides has now sued.